Bolivian killing of Irish national allegedly linked to CIA

Michael Dwyer, a 24-year-old man from Tipperary, was one of the three men shot in Santa Cruz in April 2009 over an alleged plot to assassinate president Evo Morales.

Bolivian authorities have released evidence that they claim links the killing of three Europeans by Bolivian police last spring to the CIA.

Michael Dwyer, a 24-year-old man from Tipperary, was one of the three men shot in Santa Cruz in April 2009 over an alleged plot to assassinate president Evo Morales.

The other two men killed were Romanian national Magyarosi Arpak and Hungarian Eduardo Rozsa Flores, who is accused of leading the group.

President Morales has accused the U.S. of organizing groups to kill him. Washington denies the charge.

Now Bolivian investigators claim to have found email correspondence linking Flores to Istvan Belovai, a former Hungarian military intelligence officer who defected to the U.S. in 1990 and later became a CIA agent.

Belovai died last November in the U.S. at the age of 71.

Information found on Flores laptop includes discussion of proposed attacks on infrastructure as well as on Cuban and Venezuelan humanitarian aid workers.

The family of Michael O'Dwyer have long claimed he was set up.

An inquest was carried out in Ireland after he was shot dead by Bolivian police in Santa Cruz in April.

The inquest concluded that he died from one single gunshot wound to the heart, and not six gunshot wounds, as previously stated by Bolivian authorities.

Ireland’s State Pathologist, Dr. Marie Cassidy, told the inquest in Dublin that the Co. Tipperary man died from a single gunshot wound to the heart.

Cassidy said pathologists in Bolivia might have confused cuts to Dwyer’s body as bullet entry and exit wounds. She added that the fatal shot had been fired by somebody standing over Dwyer; most likely as he was sitting up in bed.

Bolivian police shot Dwyer, along with two other men, in what they claim was an anti-terrorist sting operation in a hotel in Santa Cruz on April 16.

Bolivian authorities claim the men were involved in a plot to kill the Bolivian president, Evo Morales.

Authorities said the three men died in a “crossfire” after resisting arrest. Cassidy said she could not confirm evidence from police in Bolivia that Dwyer fired a weapon in the attack.

Fifty-one bullets were discovered in the hotel room after the incident. It was not clear which guns the 51 bullets had been fired from.

“As a family, we would like to know exactly what happened on that fatal night in Bolivia, when Michael was so cruelly taken from us,” Dwyer's family said after the inquest declared an “open verdict.”

“We want the truth. Only a well-resourced investigation, meeting internationally recognized standards, into the circumstances of Michael's violent death can help us find the truth, and we urge the Foreign Affairs Minister Michael Martin to mobilize such an investigation.

“This is not only important for us as a family, but for human rights on a global scale.”

Dwyer, who worked for an Irish security firm in Co. Mayo until October 2008, traveled to Bolivia with two work colleagues (a Hungarian and a Slovenian) for a bodyguard course.

The course never took place.

Dwyer’s two friends returned to Ireland but Dwyer stayed on, telling his parents he had found work in the security business.

Evidence was given at Dwyer’s inquest that his flight was paid for by businessman Alejandro Melgar, a man with links to a separatist group in Bolivia.